SHIPPING LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 January 1940, Page 5

SHIPPING LOSSES

MORE WILD NAZI CLAIMS

GERMAN NAVY’S “SUCCESSFUL WARFARE.”

NEW HIGH-WATER MARK IN CYNICISM.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright LONDON, January 28.

In a war communique issued in Berlin today it is stated that “the navy, continuing its successful warfare, sank on January 25 over 20,000 tons of shipping. A U-boat also sank two British steamers in convoy, off Oporto.

The Australian Associated Press has been officially informed that only two neutral vessels, totalling 5700 tons, and one French vessel of 3000 ions were sunk on that day by German mines or torpedoes. No British ships were sunk.

British Official Wireless comments that the German High Command’s reference to “shipping” in general without regard to whether Allied or neutral, is seen in naval circles here as a new high-water mark in Nazi cynic-' ism, which is the more flagrant for the fact that all shipping sunk on that day —with the exception of a small French ship possibly sunk off Oporto—was neutral.

The total, incidentally, was, according to the Admiralty records, not 20,000, but just over 5000 tons, comprising the 4000-tcn Everene (Latvian), and the 1300-ton Gudveig (Norwegian). Attacks by U-boats on neutral ships are continuing. The Norwegian steamer Gudveig (1300 tons) was torpedoed off the north-east coast and nine of the crew of 17 are missing. Another steamer, presumably foreign, was torpedoed .at the same time. Three ships picked up the survivors from both vessels. Eleven seamen and the captain of the Swedish steamer Sonja (1828 tons), which was torpedoed in the Atlantic, arrived at a port in Eire after five days in a lifeboat. The Sonja was torpedoed because the captain refused the submarine commander’s demand Io sign papers stating that the ship was carrying contraband. The crew drifted in two lifeboats for five days and nights. A British trawler has picked up members of the crew from a second lifeboat, and thus all are saved. An Amsterdam report says that the Dutch motor-tanker Mamtira (8245 tons) was mined off the south coast of England, but is proceeding to a British port. A Spanish vessel landed at Vigo 28 survivors from the French steamer Tourny (2769 tons), which was torpedoed at dawn on. January 25. They were picked up from a small boat in a critical condition. Six were wounded, and it is feared eight men from the ship were lost.

It is learned that one sailor is missing from the Latvian ship Everene (4434 tons), which was torpedoed shortly after leaving a British port. Seven survivors from the Norwegian steamer Enid, which was torpedoed I and shelled off the north-east coast of Scotland on January 18, have arrived at Las Palmas. This brings the number saved to 23. Sixteen additional survivors from the Swedish steamer Patria (1188 tons), which belongs to the same line as the Flandria, which sank on January 21 after striking two mines off the Dutch coast, have been landed at Helsingborg. One died on a raft, ten were killed by the explosion, and the fate of six is uncertain. The submarine war hitherto had cost Sweden twenty-seven ships and 120 lives. SHIPS INTERCEPTED FRENCH CONTRABAND CONTROL. PARIS, January 27. In the week ended January 20 French warships intercepted nine ships carrying 15,600 ions of contraband, bringing the total for the war to 480.500 tons.